Four prisoners and a guard were killed in clashes at a prison in the central Iraqi city of Hilla, during which eight inmates escaped, officials said on Saturday.

The clashes, in which nine people were also wounded, broke out after a prisoner seized a rifle from a guard and killed him, said Mohammed Ali al-Massudi, the governor of Babil province, of which Hilla is the capital.

Security forces shot dead a gunman as he opened fire on the Jeddah palace of Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz early on Saturday, said a source close to the government.

Another man was arrested during the attack in which "two men opened fire after midnight on the Qasr Shateh residence of Prince Nayef (and) the security forces retaliated, killing one of them," the source told Agence France Presse.

A member of a rogue U.S. Army unit was sentenced to three years' prison Friday after pleading guilty to killing an unarmed Afghan civilian in U.S. custody in May 2010.

Specialist Adam Winfield, 23, of Coral Gables, Fla., had been charged with premeditated murder, aggravated assault and conspiracy to commit murder in several incidents, including the deaths of three Afghan civilians in Kandahar Province.

The U.S. Army will shorten the length of tours of duty for personnel deployed in combat zones from a year to nine months, as it pursues its withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon said Friday.

"This policy will not affect personnel or units currently deployed or deploying prior to Jan. 1, 2012," the secretary of the army, John McHugh, said in a statement, adding the move would be fully in effect by April 2012.